The word perseveration has been coming into my mind with great frequency these days. It’s a cool word, you know? The verb form, perseverate, sounds like some weird techno-version of persevere, except that the -ate tacked onto the end makes it sound like something you do with a Cuisinart.
Anyway, I became curious as to what the authorities think perseveration means, so I went to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and looked it up. Check out the definition and etymology:
Main Entry: per·sev·er·a·tion
Pronunciation: \pər-ˌse-və-ˈrā-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin perseveration-, perseveratio, from perseverare
Date: 1910
Definition: continuation of something (as repetition of a word) usually to an exceptional degree or beyond a desired point
— per·sev·er·ate \-ˈse-və-ˌrāt\ intransitive verb
— per·sev·er·a·tive \-ˌrā-tiv\ adjective
I have read that people on the spectrum perseverate about things large and small, and I’m no exception. I’ve had therapists, boyfriends, schoolmates, and family all tell me that I think about things for far too long and that I need to give things a rest. Of course, it’s never seemed like too long to me. Having all those thoughts constantly spinning in my brain, like a hamster on a wheel, has always felt perfectly normal to me. But then again, in the words of a Paul Simon song, “When something’s wrong, I’m always the first to admit it, and always the last to know.”
Not that anything is wrong with perseverating, unless you’re driving the other people in your house nuts with it. That’s where continuing a process “beyond a desired point” gets people tense. Lately, I’ve been watching myself perseverate, and for me, it’s been great fun. My husband doesn’t much mind either, except when I say, “I’ll be right there to watch the movie,” and an hour later, I’m still working on whatever-it-is that really, truly, I-mean-it was only supposed to take a few more minutes to finish.
My main warning sign that I’m about to go on a roll comes very early in the game. It usually starts with a “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” of denial, as in, “I’ve got this great idea for a new mobile, and I’m just going to wind the beads around one spoon before coming downstairs and finishing breakfast.” Yeah, right. Several hours later, I’m still working on the mobile and haven’t had anything to eat or drink at all.
Now, I know better than to start when I have a commitment outside my house in the early afternoon. I’ve set up my schedule to start my volunteer work at 1 pm, which means that I need to eat, drink water, work out, drink more water, shower, dress, and generally take care of myself before going out into the world. If it’s a week that my daughter is with me, I can stave off the perseveration even without an outside commitment, because her schedule gives me a schedule, and thus a break from my own extremely focused process.
But if my daughter is at her father’s house, my husband is visiting his dad, and I’m not working outside my house, I’ve got the green light to go. I get so absolutely lost in whatever I’m doing that I couldn’t tell you whether five minutes have passed or five hours.
Lately, when I have time to myself, I’ve been perseverating with my art. I love trying things out, and seeing how they look, and taking things apart when they don’t work, and trying something new, and seeing how to do a task that’s been stumping me. I love the feeling of the beads in my hands. I love wrapping the wires to get them to coil just right. I even love the nicks and the callouses I’m getting on my fingers. I love the whole blessed thing.
When I’m alone and can let the art take me where it wants me to go, I find that perseverating doesn’t happen “beyond a desired point,” because there is no desired point. At those times, it’s the “continuation of something…to an exceptional degree.” It’s better than persevering. It’s persevering by letting go and letting the process take me where it will. It’s persevering with inspiration.
However, nothing exists in isolation from its opposite. So while perseverating on my art feels wonderful, having to stop for any reason is very, very difficult. Sometimes, it feels painful. Perseverating is physical, like a powerful force that doesn’t want to stop. Something has to interpose itself between me and the object of my perseveration. Sometimes, an external commitment, like a doctor’s appointment, will do it. At other times, it’s my internal moral compass telling me that I can’t keep my family waiting endlessly for dinner or for a movie.
There are forces equal to perseveration, and being an adult, I can choose to stop and shift my attention. I love spending time with my husband and daughter. I know that nothing lasts forever, that my daughter will soon be grown, that my husband and I are getting older, and that I’d better pay attention now, because one day, everything will be changed. Growing older provides perspective, and I am glad of that.
It’s the transition from one activity to another that is difficult for me. I even have difficulty saying good-bye to the day and going to sleep, no matter how tired I am. It’s my Aspie wiring. I can talk my way around it and adjust my life around it, but I can’t ever change it.
And why would I want to? As difficult as it is, it makes me who I am. And I’m enjoying who I am, more and more, with every passing day.
© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
Hyperfocusing is the flip side to ADD. I can be engrossed in something, or be totally oblivious. There is no in-between. In today’s microwave culture, perserverance is a lost virtue. The ancients recognized it as a good thing. I think the Spectrum has been medicalized because there is no longer tolerance for different personality types. If you have an issue, here’s a tissue (or a pill). But I still take my meds, ’cause like it or not, I am forced to fit in. Some random reactions to the post.
Perseveration, my old friend.
I think perseveration is a major part of my executive dysfunction. I don’t get stuff I need to do done because I spend all my time stuck on something I really, really want to do. This is the negative side of it for me. (Not that difficulty transitioning isn’t also a problem for me; it clear is. Stop by my blog if you want some evidence of that…)
I hadn’t thought about perseveration being linked to executive dysfunction, but it makes total sense. Either I get so caught up in something I love that I forget to do basic tasks, or I get so caught up in doing all my basic tasks that I don’t get to the stuff I enjoy. I’m very, very slowly beginning to merge my basic tasks list with my creative life.
Somehow, by the grace of G-d, everything gets done around here. It helps to have a partner who shares tasks with me. It also helps that my daughter is a teenager and my role is now: “Be available, support her, and then get out of her way.”
Perseveration, along with Tenacity, has always been one of my favorite words. I love the way it sounds and I view it as a positive quality. I even remember my great-grandmother having these “The Value of….” books; of which both perseveration and tenacity had titles.
I too find myself doing this constantly; but that’s kind of the definition now isn’t it? How many times have I found myself awake at 3am, having nothing for dinner, no snack, with an aching back and drooping eyes just to fix some irritant on my computer or edit my new project? Basically, it’s the norm for me. I think it has a lot to do with my tendency to get involved in what I call “serial projects”, become almost obessed over them until I have explored, learned, and gleamed everything from the project that is possible (hence the perseveration requiring tenacity), at which point I usually begin to lost interest only to shift my attentions to a new one.
The most horrible moments are not the long hours spent over my latest obsession (this month it was Christmas shopping/planning), it’s the emptiness that comes after I have tired of one and another has yet to come along.
Oh gosh, I can be up until 3AM doing something I’m perseverating over. Not good when I have to get up at 7AM to go to work.
i love perseveration (sometimes.) it feels good when it’s on something useful. but computer games? oh help. they’re addictive even to people off the spectrum. sometimes i’m not sure i have a prayer in the world.
This is a fantastic post, and thanks so much for putting it out there into the world. I love how the the web means that occasionally something you wrote can touch somebody years later. You sure did for me.
I’m an adult in his late 20′s who finally got diagnosed ADHD-Primarily Inattentive about 8 months back, but who is realizing more and more how some of the Asperger’s literature describes the social experience of my childhood/adolescence (and by downstream effects, adulthood) better than the usual ADHD narratives (among other things, I don’t process social cues at anything like conversational realtime, which as a kid and adolescent lacking learned context meant I essentially didn’t process them at all). Some of the most central characteristics of AS are missing in me; however, the cluster of behaviors I do recognize in myself when I read introductions to Asperger’s are some of my biggest remaining, hardest to explain problems.
Which brings me to your post: one of these issues is specifically the kind of perseveration you have described — yes, it’s a part of ADHD too, but my own experience is expressed in _precisely_ the ways you laid out here. (I’m a compulsive editor, ex-journalist who used to be terrified of cold-calls and interviews and would procrastinate endlessly to avoid them, would-be writer, internet addict, and AWFUL at making myself sleep on time because the world is too stimulating. And these days, I live alone, and no longer have someone else’s routine to latch onto.) You have described here a piece of my own personality with such clear detail and easy familiarity that I had to grin, and I’m going to make reference to this page next time I see my shrink.
You helped someone with this (me), lots. Hope that brings a smile to your face.
Hi Michael –
Wow! I’m so glad that you identified so thoroughly with my post. It’s always music to my ears to know that I’ve helped.